Vanilla in My Smoothie

Oh my have the days been speeding by. I think my boys have each grown three inches since I last posted. It just seems that all of it is zooming past us and the more I try to take it in the more I realize how impossible it is to catch it all.

Last week my friend (and many of yours) Amber came by and we began a workout regimen. She has recently been certified as a personal trainer and she needed a few people to work with to get her feet wet. Knowing my goal to lose weight in the next couple of months for my reunion, she asked if I would be one of her guinea pigs. I obliged. Now many of you know my disdain for exercise, but you probably also know how much I hate the feeling of my legs rubbing together when I walk. The diet has been working, but I was hitting a stagnant point and needed a bit of a boost. I was realizing that right at the time Amber asked me to help her out and decided that this was definitely an opportunity that I needed to take advantage of. I have been doing 30 minutes of cardio every day except Sundays. I lost a little bit this week and I’ve been super-duper sore. Three days a week she has assigned strength training on top of the cardio. On Thursday evening she was here at the house showing me the different forms of strength training she wants me to do this week. I could hardly move this weekend. I know it’s a good sore, but my, my, my. One of the things I noticed immediately was that my attitude toward my diet changed a bit too. Running to burn calories is a lot of work and if I eat that piece of cake I’m negating a good portion of that work. Is it worth it? Probably not!

I do not have a gym membership anywhere so I am doing all of my work at home. Amber has shown me a lot of simple things I can do to build my strength and burn calories right in my living room. I am blessed with two stairwells too, so I am now calling them the inclines of torture. One of the funniest things about working out at home is dealing with the kids. They really want to be involved of course. I try to get up early enough in the morning that I can do my 30 minutes of cardio before they wake up. This morning, that worked great. Wednesday morning it didn’t. I was ready to start a run at 5:20. I heard Owen and Aron get up so I quickly adjusted my plan to a “less interesting” run where I don’t leave our street. I went through the garage, grabbed two small lawn chairs for them and told Aron to stay at our house. Owen got his bike and rode up and down the street with me. Aron got bored and ran into the garage for his light saber and an extra one for me. I was running back toward the house when I saw him running toward me still in his pajamas with a light saber pointed out in front of him. “Mommy, mommy, do you want to play light sabers with me?” I ran with a light saber for a little while. These things can really make me feel ridiculous and self-conscious when one of my neighbors comes out of the house to leave for work. But I can’t complain too much. My kids like me, they want to be with me, help me, play with me and they care so little about any extra weight I’m trying to rid myself of. In truth, I would rather impress these three little fellows than any of my neighbors.

Ivan, who is usually the last one up, was first to greet me this morning. I was cooling down on the back porch (so as not to leave sweat stains on my indoor furniture) and he came hobbling out to my chair, face all torn up in distress. He told me that a dog had bitten his foot. We don’t have a dog and I knew he hadn’t been out of the house yet, but I held him anyway and asked him where it hurt. Apparently it was a large dog because his whole foot had been in the dog’s mouth. He did acknowledge that it was a dream, but his reaction never wavered.

When we came inside there were ants on the counters. We had a little problem with ants last year but I was able to keep them very controlled. As long as I didn’t leave crumbs under the table, sprayed the back door area with bug spray and prayed a lot, they never seemed to get past the area around our kitchen table. This year, they seem to be coming from several different sources and I am not sure where to fight. I am going to call someone today about coming to the house and waging this battle for/with me. We have nearly three weeks of company coming soon (including four extra little boys) and I can’t have ants competing for my kitchen space. There are ants are trying to come in the front door too and I have found two little openings in the dining room window and the casing of the front door that seem to be their way in. These are equally annoying but seem to be slightly smaller ants and they have so far stayed in one small area and not threatened any food. The battle is underway none the less. I know many of you have dealt with critters and such, so I’m sure you can sympathize. I will win this battle.

Well I’ve drained the last of my daily smoothie from the cup and it is time to engage in the good stuff of discipline, clean up and potty training. The boys have allowed me some good blogging time first and I’ve enjoyed it. Sort of like that little splash of vanilla I added to my unsweetened smoothie this morning.